A next-generation, high-speed fighter-interceptor using advanced stealth technology (stayed mainly in concept stages). A wiki-like page on its history can be viewed here:

Update: (from its fictional history)"A few aircraft were delivered, used for reconnaissance flights over Iraq and Afghanistan in the 80s, but further development was abandoned in favor of other stealth models: F-117 and the B-2." However, it turns out F-19 designation was never used by the military. It's good as fiction, though.

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23 Comments:

Anonymous said...

On the Northrop-Loral F19 - it's only a model! That wiki page is easily debunked - there is no town of Longmont, Nebraska (there's one in Colorado), and hence no Longmont Aircraft Museum. There is no 17th Fighter Squadron, although the 9th Reconnaissance Wing is real. Furthermore, you can find the satellite shot of Davis-Monthan at http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&ll=32.150,-110.833&z=18 rotated through 90 degrees. Note the missing aircraft. The only remaining question is why? Speculative fiction?

I enjoyed the road rally clip. It looked like there was no room for error! Was the passenger reading instructions to the driver the whole time? Do they have a chance to memorize the road before their run?

"Was the passenger reading instructions to the driver the whole time? Do they have a chance to memorize the road before their run?"

That is indeed what the passenger is there for, and yes, they do at least one run of the road to write down the cues. Otherwise we would be seeing far slower rallies than we do today and many more accidents.

seconded for the F19. It in fact look like... the F19... by Microprose and other toy maker. When rumors started to appear in the 80' about a stealth plane somebody had to come up with an artistic view of what it could look like.

I managed to buy one Heller model last week, they fall into oblivion after the air force spoke openly about the F117

The first of the two child/hand grenade pictures is "Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, New York City (1962)" by Diane Arbus, by the way - http://english.uchicago.edu/graduate/amer/images/nelson3.jpg

Pity about the Northrop-Loral being a fake, it's a beautiful concept model. I think "F19" is a designation that has never actually been used for a USAF plane, even though there are ones named up to F18 and from F20 onwards.

Another organic architect is Dr. Eugene Tsui (info at http://www.tdrinc.com/ and specifically his architecture at http://www.tdrinc.com/architecture.html ), who also designed a Nautilis House design to accomodate a program for a growing family (just as a nautilis adds chambers to its shell as it grows). You can see model pics at http://www.tdrinc.com/wilson.html

In the Fallout picture, the aircraft carrier is wrong: the island should be on the other side. The bow, complete with catapults, is pointing towards the viewer, yet the island is right-hand side, when it should be on the left. Either the image is reversed, or the artist painted it from a reversed image.

See here for reference:http://hnsa.org/ships/intrepid.htm

(I presume the painting depicts the USS Intrepid at New York, but the observation would be true for any US carrier).

The Nautilus house reminds me of the art and architecture of Roger Dean. See here for examples:

Sorry, Anonymous. You have it exactly backward. The island on all American carriers is on the starboard (right-hand as she steams) side. In fact I don't know of a carrier from any country for which that isn't true. Note that the Navy's web site (navy.mil) has detailed information about many US ships; look it up. The picture is correct.

The "F19" has an interesting history. When rumors started going around about "invisible" airplanes, the first thing that happened was people informing the public that they were talking about radar only; they went on and on about round surfaces being bad reflectors, hiding the inlets from the ground, and similar stuff. Then sketches started making the rounds, all with rounded and swoopy lines. It even made Tom Clancy, as the "Wobblin' Goblin" of Red Storm Rising. The real F117 is so totally different that there are those, myself included, who darkly suspect a disinformation campaign, and the fact that "F19" hasn't been used feeds our paranoia :-)

Ric, I think you misunderstood anonymous' comment. Although carrier islands are always on the starboard side,(I know from serving aboard everything class, forrestal to nimitz) the one in "fallout" appears to be reversed in the image or the image itself is reversed. The dead givaway is that the bow is facing the viewer. also it appears to be an older class ship due to the two bridle catchers sticking out.

I don't get the comment about the carrier's island either .. it looks right to me in the picture. CVN 75 is USS Harry Truman.http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/75.htm

As a point of interest, the Japanese Akagi and Hiryu had their island superstructures on the port side of the ship (there were a couple of convoluted reasons for this) but this feature increased the incidence of accidents as propeller aircraft tended to swerve left due to torque if engine power was suddenly increased. So this feature was abandoned in later ships.

I'm the "anonymous" who posted the comment about the carrier's island. Couple of points:

1. For clarity, I'm talking about the carrier in the post-apocalyptic-style painting from the game "Fallout" at the top of the page, NOT the photograph of the washdown system being tested on CVN-75.

2. I stand by my observation: the carrier in the painting clearly has it's bow towards the viewer, which means the island is on the wrong side. All US carriers most certainly DO have the island to starboard (right) which means you can test this just by looking at the painting and the photo below it: they're both "bow-on" shots, so one of them MUST be wrong.

3. The carrier in the painting has a funnel (so it can't be a CVN-anything) and looks awfully like a SCB-125 modified Essex class, hence my tentative ID of it as the Intrepid.

Think you're right about it being inspired by the Oriskany: the painting has a suggestion of an anchor chain wrapped around the bow in exactly the same way as the one in the Florida-divepros photo, and the pattern of open and shut portholes in the bow is the same.

Also, check out this picture of the actual sinking:

http://slrsite.com/gallery/v/oriskany/fire-in-the-hole-1.jpg.html

Guess that'd be where the artist got the idea for the red "glows" in the picture eh? ;-)

The first 'anonymous' -- excellent homework on your debunking...but the other anonymous got it right by noticing the 'Fiction' category highlighted and bolded at the bottom. It's not the Microprose or the Testor's stealths (that were the most common) -- it's the Monogram stealth F-19:

IIRC, didn't the DoD actually ,sue Testors Hawk over their F-19, and then fail to produce any evidence in court on the grounds that it was classified? I always thought that was a marvellous bit of disinformation: it lent serious credibility to the Testors Hawk version, which turned out to be nothing much like the real thing...:-D

No suing occurred, but Congress did try to claim the Testor's model was proof that security had been breached -- a senator held up a Testor's model in session and asked, how can it be so classified if kids can buy them at a hobby shop. A high-ranking person in the F-117 project then built a simple model showing what the real stealth looked like, and took it to the security council to prove that Testor's model was entirely fictional. (this is truth, found in a couple different sources online; no time to find linkies at this time). Monogram, however, paid Testor's for the right to use the name "F-19 stealth" on the model in the Specter article, to avoid being sued for copying Testor's lead. That's why the F-19 Stealth video game looks like Testor's model: licensing fees speak volumes.